Annabelle

Yesterday was a very sad day. Our family dog, Annabelle past away at age 15 after having a stroke. She was a [very] stubborn Airedale who entered my family as a puppy when I was 16: this means that I knew her for half of my life.

I have many stories about her, but my favorite memory also illustrates how smart she was: She could play hide and seek! The game went like this:

We'd be sitting in the TV room & she would playfully run up to us and give one bark and then run away. She'd repeat this a few times which meant she wanted to play.

We'd say to her "Ok Annie: Wait!" and she'd wait for someone to go and hide.

When the hiding person was well hidden, they'd have to give a little whistle and she'd start searching. She'd focus on all the main hiding places: my parents bathroom shower... behind bedroom doors... under beds.. and when she found us, she'd bark twice with excitement and go and wait in the TV room for us to hide again!
Cool hey?!

The following picture was taken of the two of us in 1993:


Other quirky things:

• Annie was a little obsessed with toilet paper, tissues and my dad's hankeys (she could remove these items from pockets with incredible ease)...
  
  
• She also loved stealing socks & other laundry basket items ~ even when she got old!
  
  
• One of her best treats was ice cream (my parents would take her out for her own R1 ice cream from McDonalds if she'd been left alone all day!). My dad also always saved restaurant mints for her as a treat for when they got home :)
  
  
• I'll add more as I think of them! :)
  

Underwater Fun!

I bought a cheapy disposable waterproof film camera for when Geoff and I went snorkeling in Gili Meno, but the photos just didn't come out as well as I had hoped. Firstly, we only had 24 exposures, and secondly, half of them simply didn't come out...and lastly: the ones that did come out ok needed some serious editing to make them look like something eg:

So, shortly after we got back, I invested in an underwater housing for my G10. It is almost full function (I can switch modes / zoom etc etc). This is what it looks like:

Because its been so chilly, I've not had a chance to test it out.....But we started swimming in our pool a couple of weeks ago, so we had some perfect opportunities to see what it can do in the pool! We took it underwater & these are some of the results:

Angela's Visit

I was treated to a wonderful visit from my ex-flatmate & really good friend Angela over the last couple of weeks... We had a really fun lat night out with Graeme at Cavendish: Dinner at Simply Asia [yum!] and the latest Harry Potter movie!

New Veggie Garden!

On Sunday morning I got myself ridiculously dressed for Aline's bachelorette 'Crime of Fashion' themed breakfast. Yes: themed breakfast. I wore one of my Gran's evening dresses from who knows when. Certainly the biggest crime of fashion I have in my possession:

Need I say more?!

Alice, who kindly hosted the spectacular breakfast, has one of the most awesome veggie gardens I've seen in a very long time. What I especially love is that she has poppies & cornflowers growing haphazardly between the veggie plants. It reminded me of my plan when choosing our rented house of moving the lavender bushes outside the kitchen window to the edges & making my veggie garden in the middle.

Well, it was just perfect timing! James {our gardener} arrived bright and early this morning & we put him to work on this project. Geoff and I went off to Harry Goeman's Nursery just up the road from us to buy soil, fertilizer & some basil, lettuce, peppers, gooseberries, tomatoes, rocket and some other goodies to get started with.

Now for watering & caring for our little plants so that they can produce some lovely salad additions for us! :)